Bangalore Comic Con is scheduled to be held from 12-09-2014 to 14-09-2014 at White Orchid Convention Center, Nagavara, Bengaluru. Flipkart is coming out with a great surprise for you. It is associating with Amar Chitra Katha, one of the most loved stories across the country, to come up with twelve exclusive stalls at the ComicCon.

Amar Chitra Katha’s Ultimate Collection containing 315 titles & 10 Special Collections will be on display. And, guess what? Buy the bad box set at the comic con and Flipkart will very generously give you the 7 inch Digiflip Pro Tablet worth Rs. 5999 for Free!

Not just this, there is plenty more in store for the kids, an entire stall built in the shape of a fort – The Flipkart ACK Fort will amuse them. There would be story telling sessions and kids get to participate in raffles, quizzes, photo ops, storytelling and book reading. They can even give their archery skills a shot at a booth that tests the “Pandava Arjun” in them. So, friends mark the date on your calendar and do visit the event to enjoy Flipkart’s exclusive treat!

So, after Bhushans and Kejriwal finally the Anti-Anna people have found a string to tie Ms. Kiran Bedi under corruption charges.
The first woman IPS of the country and winner of various Gallantry awards has been accussed of inflating travel charges paid by an NGO on account of travels made for delivering speeches at various places.
In his defence, Miss Bedi has clarified that she had done so to meet the expenses of her NGO which are not sponsored.
If we unlink Miss Bedi from the campaign against corruption and have a lighter view on this, we will find that this is a very common practice implemented at every stage of life. A housewife inflate a certain of bill to cop up with other expenses, A student inflate the fees, book prices to spend some extra activities, A canteen wala charges a fraction more from few to feed some at lower rate. In most of the cases the reason is not corrupt and in few the inflated amount is used for the most honest work.
Such is the case of Ms. Bedi, She might have very good intentions, but she has given a chance to others to charge her with corruption.
So, it’s upto us to decide whether it tantamounts to corruption or not.

The plan to visit Manali started with two on board me & Sanjay. And even after lots of hard work done by Sanjay by utilising his two days’ off in calling numerous friends to persuade them to accompany us, we were successful in getting only Kamaldev on board. So, it was decided that three of us would use the Government Transportation to reach Manali, and three seats were booked by Sanjay in an AC deluxe bus from Chandigarh to Manali. Since, it was a 2 by 2 bus, one of us was supposed to sit with some other passenger, and that gave birth to a new hope that the other passenger might be a Beautiful girl. This hope was a reason of Goosebumps and a fight among us to decide who would sit with the passenger if it would a girl and who would if it won’t be. After, a bit of resistant, keeping in mind my previous badluck in this trait, I voluntarily withdraw my candidature for the hotseat and sat with Sanjay. So, it was me and Sanjay sitting together and Kamal Sitting in front row. Another family of 10 people were also travelling in the same bus, and don’t know how they mismanaged to get a single seat on the either side of aisle i.e. one with Kamal and the another on the other side of the aisle. So, for their convenience, a couple of that family occupied sat together occupying someone else’s seat and dumping their seat adjacent to Kamal’s. So, this leave the ray of hope enlightened in his heart and we waited for the Kamal’s co passenger with curiousity. And, bang!!! The door opened and a Beautiful girl entered the bus with only one vacant seat that’s with Kamal. It must have set Kamal’s heart on pounding and a series of emotions named badluck, jealousy ran through mind and I once again started cursing my luck. And Kamal must have thanked all the gods he had listen about for this opportunity. But none of us knew that Kamal’s happiness was shortlived and so was our sorrow. When the Beautiful and much awaited girl checked his ticket, it was found that her seat is on the other side of the aisle which was occupied by that family. They requested her to swap the seat and sit with Kamal, but she bluntly refused to that. Soon, the expression of glee faded from Kamal’s face and he looked shocked and sad. And me and Sanjay broke into continuous laughter for almost ten minutes annoying Kamal and surprising the other passengers. And, hence the journey started with lots of emotions and laughter!!! A perfect start to an interesting weekend !!!

“Dantewada”, many of us might have heard/overheard this word over the last week, but does it haunt you? It might not to most of us, but it certainly do haunt dozens of grieved families of quarter-ton CRPF jawans killed in the Massacre on Tuesday. The ill trained/equipped were trapped in a well planned attack and booby troops by hundred of maoists hiding in dense forests, they were brutally killed, blown up with pressure mines and later on looted of their weapons. It was major setback to the policy adopted by the home minister to tackle with the Maoists. There was major failure of intelligence, application and strategy and soon the phrases articulated with some elite vocabulary borrowed from US like “Clear, hold and build” were replaced by another set of vocabulary i.e. “Where does the buck stop?” It was wise on the part of PC not to pass the buck and morally claiming that the buck stops nowhere but on his own desk unlike his previous statement where he claimed CM Buddadheb’s desk to be the final halt of the Buck. But, Rather than marking end points for the “Buck” or passing it from one person to other, we especially our home minister should be more concerned about carving out the plans to remove the “buck”. No wonder this government has ministers which has such a flabbergasting oratory that they can please anyone with spontaneous flow of words. They have been doing it very well since they have got elected, but now it’s the time to translate those words into action. It’s the time when we should unwrap the cloak of Robinhood which the Maoists are wearing. With brutal killings of the security personals they Maoists are losing sympathy for them among the tribals which are now inclining toward the Government. Maoists have surely given the tribal people the guns, the power to kill, but they certainly haven’t provided them the thing they are fighting for. Tribal people now can kill but their children still cannot go to school, their villages are still deprived of the basic necessities like roads, water, and electricity. There is no ambiguity in the fact that it’s the Indian Government and not the Maoists that can fulfill the needs of Tribal People. No wonder we can not by pass the Maoists and directly lure the tribals by providing them education, development and proper resources. We have to deal with violence and the threats posed by the Maoists. We have to eradicate the Maoists and then develop the region. It should be the way it was said by PC “Clear, hold and build”. But the area should be cleared with the consensus of the common people with zero collateral damage and then the process of building up the region should be started.

Reservation was first adopted in constitution of India for the period of 5 years for social upliftment of socially backward classes, which have lesser representation in various services and institutions of India. But as we have moved forward, ‘Reservation’ has acquired a meaning which extensively differs from the idea for which this term was coined. Nowadays reservation has been a much used term in the Political Manifesto of most of the Parties and has been a major card to win vote banks during elections. And at the moment, we are at a stage when reservation has almost crossed the halfway mark and is resulting in reverse discrimination. I would like to point out two examples of reservation which will surely highlight many flaws of Reservations.

(a) Since most of the reservations are based on caste in India, It results in discrimination against the meritorious students/candidates. For an instance, if a General and a SC candidate get selected as DC of District after clearing IAS exam. And they start their livelihood from scratch. No wonder that both the DC would earn the same and their children would get exactly similar facilities in life. Yet at the time of Admission in Educational Institutes and selection in Government Jobs, son of the SC will get reservation any would bypass the General’s son even if he had scored less than the latter. It doesn’t end here, a reserved employee will get promotions and bypass unreserved employee not on the basis of performance but on the basis of the family/caste he has taken birth in.

(b) Similarly there was much furore about the Women Reservation Bill and was in the pipeline since the Idea was proposed by then PM PV Narsimah Rao around 14 years ago. And after years long struggle, on Women’s day the bill was passed which would reserve one-third of the seats in Constituency on rotational basis for the period of fifteen years. Only thing that has impressed me about the tabling of the bill and later on its acceptance in the higher house is the way the house has passed it and the MPs has voted beyond the party lines. It seems like the advent of an Era where Policy making has scaled the walls of Party politics and vote to bring a change and for the development and progress of country be it Vote of no confidence motion during nuke deal or Women Reservation bill. But in later case i.e. for Women Reservation bill we have surely missed a proper argument in absence of any opposition by major parties, the only opposition for the bill we had, was from a bunch of leaders trying to win muslim vote banks who were asking to have Quota within the Quota. But, on overlooking this hairline ray of light of better polity in India, we’ll come across the various flaws that this reservation has in it. Firstly, since the reservation of the seats is to be done on rotational basis for the period of 15 years, this will make the MPs or MLAs from the respective constituency less accountable. If we have a male MP for one term and in the following term the said constituency would be reserved for a woman, that MP is not gonna reelected irrespective of the work he has done. Similarly this problem will give rise to dynasty politics as MPs may get their female family members contesting from the reserved constituency.

Above all if it is taken as a step to empower the women in India, I don’t find it that way. As, politics is not a one on one bout in a boxing ring, in which we need same gender contesting against each other. In fact by reserving the seats particularly for females we are sidelining them from male contenders and I don’t think that any female would feel proud to defeat a weak female contender instead of a relatively strong male contender. Why do we need a law for a thing which can be imposed/done by principles? Each party is independent to stand as many women as they want, then why mere 33 % when they can have 100% women contesting the elections. Same is the questions for the Leaders who are asking for reservation for Dalits/SC, if they want to uplift certain cast give them the tickets. I believe that all we need is better leaders/politician irrespective of their sex/cast/community. I would be happier than any one if we have all our MPs women if they are better leaders than the competing men. Jai Hind!!!

My last post has might change my image of an anti policymakers kinda blogger. But once again, the happenings around me has brought the real critic out of me and has forced me to post something which would again highlight the dark patches of our system and how various critical situations are held in our country. On Friday a truck stormed into an electric pole bringing a half century old structure down which led to the breaking down of four other poles too and soon the NH-95 became a pool of death with high voltage electrical wires spread across the road. Somehow, the electrical department acted on time and switched off the supply to avoid any kind of mishap. But, unfortunately as much expected nothing was done to clear the road. After 5 hours of the collapse, the situation was same, but some VIP area needed the supply of electricity urgently. So, after taking some initial safety measures which includes posting a constable on either side of the affected road to divert the traffic, the supply of the electricity was resumed thro’ the broken poles and the wires lying on the road and divider. This act put life of many people on danger, but who cares when it come to fulfill the needs of Indian VIPs. Then the authorities waited for some mishap to act in an appropriate way and that happened soon as there was no electricity on the highway some drunkard bikers miscued the constable to divert the traffic as a traffic police and rode at a high speed toward the side where the wires were spread to avoid any challan or fine. And, soon they sped into the web of death and one of the biker died on spot. It took more than an hour and the efforts of the local people to drag the body out of the trap with the help of wooden logs. The authorities were too inert to the situation, being a cantonment area the military acted and registered a case against the electrical department and blocked the way with the help of newly installed iron cages to protect the newly planted trees along the road side. It was resourceful thing to do but its very disappointing that the police authorities doesn’t have proper blocking material with radium signs so that it could be visible in dark too. If, the administration would have acted accordingly then the biker wouldn’t has been punished to death for violating the traffic rules which otherwise would have cost him some fine. So, it took a death and more than a day to set up things and restore the power supply. Its highly disappointing that why the lives of the common man of our country is taken as granted and we aren’t being considered as anything but a vote to elect the politicians to power and then bear with them till the next elections!!!